If You’re Over 30…Don’t Wait Until it’s Too Late.
Osteoarthritis is the leading cause of disability worldwide, largely due to pain, which is the primary symptom of the disease. Until recently there weren’t many treatment solutions for osteoarthritis. Most mainstream medical approaches are prescribing pain medications or anti-inflammatories, and/or performing surgical procedures. Basically, symptom-based care. The problem with this model of care is that it is a degenerative model. Ultimately, the patient takes the medications to mask the pain while the condition only worsens until they require surgery or become disabled. Symptom-based care is what brought us things like oxycontin and other opioids that have addicted millions of people in a very short time.
Osteoarthritis is a disease process that progresses over several decades of a person’s life. Usually, due to trauma in the joint from functional movement issues, contact trauma, and overuse. How fast and how bad osteoarthritis gets depends on a lot of variables. Such as genetics, weight, diet, and activity level. What a lot of people do not know is that osteoarthritis can be invoked by a sedentary lifestyle or lack of movement. As we see this in those who are quadra and paraplegics. Chronic inflammation is also linked to the progression of osteoarthritis.
Our body produces proteases that attack and digests our bone, cartilage, synoviocytes, and other tissues found in our joints. What invokes this proteases has been the topic of many studies recently because discovering the exact mechanism that causes these degenerative proteases to be activated could lead to a cure. What research has begun to show is that this process starts as early as our 30s. While most early occurrences do not have symptoms, the process is silently breaking down the joints and will eventually rob them of their functional abilities.
Stopping Osteoarthritis Before It Sets In
What if there was a way to turn off the proteases, to inhibit it? Proactively treating osteoarthritis could lead to a better quality of life later. Osteoarthritis is a progressive degenerative disease, so the sooner the disease process is treated the less damage will be done long term and less repair will be needed an older age.
Prevention is Key
The reason for a positive outcome from this preventative treatment is found in our own blood. APIC-A2M is known to protect the joint and prevent the breakdown of cartilage and bone by catabolic proteases. This A2M is not concentrated in high enough doses in our bloodstream, and for other reasons, has issues actually getting to the joints. Currently, there are methods in regenerative medicine for extracting APIC-A2M from a person’s blood and concentrating it to 6 times the normal concentration in the bloodstream. This concentrated A2M can then be injected directly into the area of concern and stop the proteases.
Notable Regeneration
The length of time it takes for A2M to stop the degeneration process can range from 6 months to a year. Patients can have this procedure done on an annual or semiannual basis. The nice thing about A2M is that when extracted and concentrated, it results in a high volume solution allowing for injections into multiple joints with just one harvest, ultimately this is a much cheaper alternative to managing osteoarthritis in the long run. Also, if minor damage exists, adding PRP to the A2M concentration is an option for regenerating the tissue.
For patients who already have moderate to severe osteoarthritis, A2M can turn off the process but they would need stem cell and/or PRP to help regenerate the damage that has occurred. These are regenerative therapeutics that will regrow and repair some of the tissue.
